gender problem and the question of access to the Club's upper floors continued to nag the Cochrane administration. A general meeting on March 14 found members at loggerheads over prohibiting women on the upper floors between certain hours. The meeting finally passed a proposal that until a suitable rule could be drafted and enforced, no woman should be allowed above the street floor of the Club between the hours of 12 midnight and 9 A.M. In fact, these hours were changed from time to time, varying between 2 and 4, and 4 and 6, to the accompaniment of much grumbling.
On June 20, Mrs. Lee Martin, wife of Robert (Pepper) Martin (Time-Life), put her foot down and demanded that women correspondents be allowed to live in the Club. A motion that they be given space on the third floor, with the use of the shower there, was tabled when Joe Fromm said this required amendment of the constitution, which could only be carried out by a referendum. On June 27, the referendum was duly approved, 19-10, and women correspondents finally gained practical equality with the men. By another referendum on July 29, the members went all the way, passing unanimously a change in the Rules to give "full membership" to "all women correspondents who meet the definition of a member."
Though this made it official, apparently women correspondents were residents of the billets before then. The minutes for the general meeting held on May 7, under the chairmanship of the secretary Burton Crane, carried a statement by three women members, Gwen Dew, Margaret Parton, and Martha Ferguson, protesting against "filthy" and crowded conditions in the bathrooms. They proposed two bathrooms for women: "1. One bathroom for American women and one for Japanese, or 2. One bathroom for women members of the club and associate members, and one for all other women guests, resident and nonresident."
The document is intriguing, less for its insistence upon women's rights than its reference to "associate members." No documentation previously mentioned a category for "associate members." There had been speculation that certain people active in the Club's affairs, like William Salter, who gave advice on Club finances, was an "associate" before such a category was created in 1955. Salter later was voted a "life member." Rutherford Poats states categorically that there were "associates" in 1947, although it may not have become an official membership category until later.
Honor Tracy, of the Observer, couldn't see what was so great about the Press Club billets anyway. In her book Kakemono (Hanging Scroll), she wrote that her room was sparsely furnished and located between, on one side, the room of a male correspondent with "a somewhat complicated private life," and, on the other, the quarters of the female Japanese staff, who chattered late into the night. She didn't like the crowded showers and washroom, shared by women correspondents, correspondents' wives, Japanese maids, and a shifting population of women "friends" of the male correspondents. She was turned off also by the "plump, cheeky rats" who invaded her room and fed on her foodstuff. One pair, she wrote, even encroached upon the pillow beside her and stared at her with "bright, malignant eyes."
In defense of the Club's nonhuman rodent population, it should be pointed out that every big city has nonhuman as well as human rats. The poor Press Club rats previously had been forced to live on crumbs from an inferior wartime Japanese diet, then had been driven out of their homes by bombs which turned their nests into rubble. To them, the Press Club was heaven. Not only was the food a thousand times better, but the residents were more generous in leaving it lying around, as did Honor.
Of the role of No. 1 Shimbun Alley as a residential rooming house, however, Rud Poats recalls, "Several couples, including Lee and Pepper Martin, Helen and Bill Costello, and others awaiting permanent housing, had rooms upstairs and reported freely on the antics of the (temporarily) single reporters and their short-time girlfriends. One of the skits at an anniversary party featured Lee and Helen peering down into a large wooden o furo (bathtub) at a naked male member's lower anatomy and agreeing that "he's not even a member of the club."
"Members returning from a drunken evening and losing their way upstairs often evoked gossip. Greg McGregor (New York Times) fell over the swinging half-door beside the receptionist's counter and remained draped across the door in a drunken stupor. As other members arrived, they gave Greg a push and kept him swinging there for much of the evening." Always the problem of the Club's perennial problems was finances. The state of the Club's treasury soared and dipped with the wars. Armed conflicts brought an influx of newsmen, and funds. But when wars end, the correspondents leave, creating a financial problem.
In general, the Club displayed a rather light-hearted attitude toward its financial condition. The minutes for a general meeting held on April 30 said: "The Treasurer reported, with admirable insouciance, that the Club lost money in April, that the Club never has paid any rent, and that the Club may have to raise its rates on meals and rooms one of these days. Amid light-hearted laughter, Mr. Hennessey moved and Mr. Bickow seconded that the report be approved. It was."
In any case, members had no lack of humor. The minutes for April 30 noted: "The secretary, in a high nasal voice, read a letter which the Executive Committee proposed sending to General MacArthur to acquaint the Supreme Commander with the curious concatenation of circumstances under which the correspondents seemed to be getting the dirty end of whatever stick was available. After some discussion, Mr. Teatsorth moved and Mr. Berrigan seconded a motion that the letter be dry-cleaned by the Rules Committee before presentation. This was approved and the meeting adjourned."
On May 7, President Cochrane had some good news for a change. The Executive Committee, he said, called on General MacArthur who promised to: (1) Make dependent housing available to them on the same basis as officers, and on a system of ratings made out by the Club; (2) Give correspondents the right to buy articles at the officers' PX; (3) See to it, even though it may require Congressional approval, that the correspondents do not lose food, clothing, and medical care privileges; (4) And provide jeeps to correspondents when they need them, with the right to buy fuel at military prices.
But then there was still a bit of bad news that hot summer. A bar had been set up on the roof because of the lack of air conditioning inside the Club. The location was somewhat precarious because the surrounding wall was not too high. One of our more prominent members, after drinking a considerable amount of beer, nonchalantly relieved himself over the side, which unfortunately happened to be over the front entrance just as a high-ranking guest was entering. The member was temporarily suspended for this indiscretion.
A second source of trouble in the Club was membership. Hal Drake complained in an article written in later years: Newsmen working for the Pacific Stars and Stripes were barred, outlawed because they worked for the U.S. military, whereas correspondents for government news media like TASS and Pravda were members. The bars were lowered a number of years later, Hal was admitted to the FCCJ, and, as he says, "the lively and intelligent company of Max Desfor, Jim Colligan, Richard Pyle, Jack Russell, Bruce Dunning, Pat Killen, so many others."
The rules also said that Japanese newsmen couldn't become members. They were Occupied enemy nationals who could not be accredited to SCAP, and SCAP had a strict rule against Allied personnel "fraternizing" with Japanese nationals. But that rule was a nonrule in the Press Club almost from day one. Correspondents had to have some place to entertain Japanese news sources, and the Club was the place. Besides, compared with the ordinary Japanese fare, the Club provided "a lavish lunch and a stimulating intellectual encounter amidst the grimness of life in Tokyo."
Though the rule itself remained on the books until the Occupation ended, a number of Japanese newsmen and photographers attached to U.N. news organizations did go to Korea and contributed to the war coverage. Since then, the Club has had a large and active Japanese membership, although a Japanese candidate for regular correspondent membership is required to have served three years overseas as a correspondent.
Some